Frustration didn’t even begin to describe what Cassian felt toward Adir.

It burned under his skin, coiled tight in his chest like a caged beast clawing to be set free. The chief was too soft, too kind, too... lenient. Every decision Adir made felt like another stone chiseled away from the mountain’s foundation—one his ancestors had spent decades fortifying. Cassian had tried, tried, to guide him, to remind him of what their people stood for, but it was like speaking to a wolf who had forgotten how to bare his fangs.

Could the man not see it? That he was weakening their pack with his choices?

Allowing that human half-blood—Aradia—to stay was already a mistake in Cassian’s eyes. But Jasmine? That was an insult. A lowlander, walking freely among them, as if she belonged. As if the blood in her veins wasn’t tainted by those who had long since forsaken the ways of the mountain. It was disgraceful.

It felt as though Adir was deliberately unraveling the traditions the Shadowpaw lineage had bled to uphold. Decades of discipline, of careful leadership, of ensuring the pack’s strength—all crumbling beneath the chief’s misguided rule. Cassian had spent his entire life protecting this pack, ensuring its future, and now? He was forced to watch it be tamed.

And if that wasn’t enough, Adir wasn’t even pressing the lowlander borders hard enough.

Cassian clenched his jaw as he stepped out of the council chamber, the heavy wooden doors shutting behind him with a dull thud. They needed that land—the mountain pack was growing, their resources thinning, their hunting grounds shrinking. Expansion wasn’t just an option; it was a necessity. Yet Adir seemed content to sit idle, to play at diplomacy, to act as if the world would grant them space without a fight.

Fool.

The cold mountain air bit at his skin as he stepped outside, but Cassian barely noticed it. His mind was too consumed with strategy, with what needed to be done, with the infuriating incompetence of their leader.